King Charles “Angry and Outraged” That Prince Harry Came After Camilla in ‘Spare’

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published 15 January 2023

In his bombshell memoir, Spare—and later in an interview on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper—Prince Harry took aim at stepmother Camilla, calling her “dangerous” and insinuating that she planted stories about other members of the royal family to rehabilitate her own image as the former mistress of the future king. Perhaps not surprisingly, Harry’s father (and Camilla’s husband) King Charles is extremely upset at the attacks on his wife, Us Weekly reports, citing a source as saying the monarch “is distraught.”

“He’s angry and outraged that Harry’s aired so many embarrassing and damaging assertions, and it’s put him in a terrible position with Camilla, of course, now that she’s been dragged into the equation,” the insider says. “That’s really crossed the line in more ways than one, but there are so many egregious comments and revelations from Harry that his father doesn’t know where to start. He has hope that, in time, the dust will settle and Harry will soften his heart toward his family—at least he hopes so. But he’s not going to push or apologize.”

In the book, Harry writes “I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy.”

Then, on 60 Minutes one week ago, Harry told Cooper that his stepmother was dangerous “because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image. That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade off information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”

In Spare, Harry alleged that a “gung ho” member of Charles’ team “devised and launched a new campaign of getting good press” for Charles and Camilla ahead of their 2005 wedding. According to Harry, this strategy came “at the expense of bad press” for him and older brother Prince William.

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.